Strange operation with SK-3005

[Bill Adams]

Those are all excellent numbers and explains why you are getting all of your channels. As you go through the list of satellites you will see that some of them end with (s) such as 99(s). These satellite transponders are spot beams signals and unless you happen to be sitting under that particular spot beam you will see very low or 0 numbers. This is perfectly normal and would not apply to any of the programming you should be receiving. These transponders (S) can be ignored when trying to compare signals.

[tincup]

Here the signal strengths when the channels are failing. The channels I've lost are 254,286, 306, 307, 505 and 509.

The signal strength on all of the satellites are the same as mentioned in my earlier post plus or minus 1 or 2 points on each TP with these exceptions.

99s T1 TP 4 27 TP6 36

T2 TP 4 29 TP6 38

I would have expected to see a more drastic drop in strength than this, I would have expected some TP's to be zero.

I don't know anything about the internal workings of the receiver but is it possible, even though it's receiving a strong signal, that some internal circuitry related only to Tuner 2 sees an open on the related channels even though there is a good signal, and thinks the signal has dropped. I'm really grabbing at straws now

This is a new receiver I got from DTV about three weeks ago. I've rebooted and refreshed it many times during the failure, rebooting sometimes brings the channel back, refreshing it does nothing.

Thanks for your time.

[Bill Adams]

You are still looking at the spot beamed transponders on 99(s). These (s) channels would not apply to any of the Nationally broadcast channels. We need to look at the 99(c) and the 103 (ca) and (cb) for HD and 101 for the rest.

[tincup]

Thanks for the heads up Bill, I'm getting a little bleary eyed looking at all these readings

I lost them again yesterday evening and while checking sig strengths I discovered this quirk. When I got the 771 message and lost the picture, I immediately checked signals on 99c and 103ca all of the TP's, except the N/As, read between 88-100 even with no picture, I stepped through both sats and each tuner, again great signals. I exited from the test/info menu back to watch DTV and I had picture on every channel. A few minutes later I lost them again, went through the signal check, all great signals, back to watch DTV and picture is fine It seems that simply checking signal strength restores the picture, that sounds like a BBC or receiver problem to me, no?

[Bill Adams]

Yes, I would have to agree that this would appear to be either BBC or receiver related. I don't see how it could be possible that the LNB could "fix itself" just by going through the signal strength meter routine. You are doing some good trouble-shooting so this might be a good time to call DirecTV and report the issue. Does this happen often enough that you would be duplicate it while on a call? If you know there are specific channels that go bad, have you tried changing channels to another bad channel when this happens. The reason you might want to try this as you would also change tuners in doing so and you could see if it is only related to one tuner.

[tincup]

Yes I could call DTV during the failure but it would be in the late afternoon/evening. That's the only time it seems to fail. That in itself could point to a possible heat related component failure.

I have switched from one bad channel to another but it always seems to be tuner 2 related, at least if you can believe that 771 error message.

I'll give them a call later today and try to convince them to send me a new receiver with 2 new BBCs. But I'm reluctant to tell them I just installed the SK-3005, I don't want them to assume the antenna is the problem, I might go back to their forum and see what their tech support says.

I'll keep this post up dated.

Thanks again for your time Bill.

Paul

[Bill Adams]

The antenna and LNB setup that you have is nothing more or less than a DirecTV Slimline 5 antenna and you can tell them that this is your setup. No need to mention that it is an auto-pointing unit since once it's pointed it's exactly the same an one mounted on a house.
Glad to be able to try to help. Let us know what you find out.

[tincup]

Just to keep the post updated, I guess no news is good news. I was away from the rig for a couple of days and didn't use the TV. I returned Monday and I haven't experienced the trouble since. I have done NOTHING to correct the problem. Prior to retiring, my whole career was in technical support for the Telco industry and I never liked the resolution "Came clear while testing" I'm sure this trouble will come back to bite me, until then, I'll enjoy my HBO uninterrupted.

The instant it returns, I'll be on the phone with DTV.

Thanks for all the input.

Paul

[Winegard Tech Help]

Paul,

If you experience your future issues during our business hours, please call us first. Our number is 800-788-4417 and we are open Monday through Friday from 7:30 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Saturday from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

[tincup]

Well it failed again yesterday, I was on the phone with DTV for about an hour and they were stumped, they scheduled a field visit for today. The tech replaced connectors at both ends, still failed, replaced cables, still failed, tested the BBC's and still failed, replaced the receiver and all is well. The trouble was a bad receiver all along. The new receiver is an HR24, the old one was HR21, I don't know if there was a software/hardware mismatch or just a bad HR 21. In any case, all is well now.